Racket and paddle sports have huge numbers of recreational participants. Some of the more popular racket and paddle sports include tennis, racquetball, badminton, and ping pong.
A common problem encountered by recreational players is losing track of the score. Since there is generally no non-participating scorekeeper, the players themselves have to also track the score. This can lead to many problems, given that the player's chief focal point is on the playing of the points themselves. Although players are generally required to announce the score before each serve, confusion can be generated by long rallies, when changing servers, or simply in the course of the game itself. In addition to honest mistakes in the actual score of a game, a less than sportsmanlike player may intentionally misstate the score.
Disagreements in the score are a common cause of discord in recreational paddle and racket games, and can easily lead to arguments and decreased enjoyment of the game. In the worst case, games may be canceled because of such disagreements.
Because of the expense of having an impartial scorekeeper, that solution is rarely, if ever, available to the recreational player. Inexpensive score displays are available, but the same problems with confusion of score can arise with these manual devices. It is simply too inconvenient for a player to periodically interrupt the game to update a scoreboard. Similarly, to date there has been no available automated device that has a selling price low enough to make it readily available to the pickup player.
Various ways have been devised to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described scoring difficulties of the conventional table tennis games scoring methods have arisen and been patented. For example:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,936 to Newgarden et al., generally describes an “ELECTRONIC TABLE TENNIS GAME” that is an electronically monitored single-player version of table tennis in which the single player returns a mechanically served ball and is able to score by striking one or more targets “strategically placed on the table surface.”
U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,236 to Minami et al., describes a “TABLE TENNIS APPARATUS” having a “ball projecting section” disposed rearward of one playing surface of a table for projecting balls towards the other playing surface; a moving mechanism for allowing ball projecting section to be moved laterally, a detecting unit for detecting which side the balls have dropped on one playing surface in the lateral direction, and a driving and controlling unit for driving the moving mechanism according to the drop positions of the detected balls, and for moving the ball projecting section towards the drop positions of the balls. The moving mechanism includes a guide rail disposed along a lateral direction, and a base having the ball projecting section mounted thereon, and slidably disposed on the guide rail.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,431 to Martin, “CONTROL GRID FOR TABLE TENNIS SCOREKEEPING DEVICE WITH AUDIO AND VISUAL DISPLAY,” generally discloses a control grid for an automated scorekeeping device for table tennis or ping pong. The invention includes a voice recorder that is used to announce the score before each serve of the apparatus, and further includes optional visual displays of scores. The scorekeeping device is actuated by means of a grid system of sensors attached to the ends of the table. The grid is activated by the players' touching the grid with a conductive strip affixed to the end of their paddles. It can be used in multiple modes.